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Chinese American novelist, nonfiction writer, and essayist Maxine Hong Kingston has contributed works to infuse American literature with the cultural and literary traditions of Asian Americans. Kingston's writings, combining different elements from genres considered as diverse as history, biography, memoir, folktale and myth, explore themes such as identity construction, family and community histories, and immigrant experiences in America. Her narratives, particularly the highly acclaimed The Woman Warrior (1976), often centers on mothers or feature motherhood as their main starting point.

Sources of Inspiration

Kingston was born in Stockton, California, on October 27, 1940. Her father was a poet and a professional scholar in China, and while in the United States he worked first as a manager of a gambling house and then bought a laundry. As a ...